Armstrong remains sixth entering open day of race

QUIMPER, France -- Now for some well-earned rest and relaxation, Tour de France style.

Battered and bruised physically and mentally by a crash-filled first week, cyclists get their first day of rest today -- a chance to treat wounds, sleep in and steel themselves for the first mountainous stages ahead.

Norway's Thor Hushovd won Sunday's hilly but fast stage through Brittany in western France, using a closing burst of speed to win the 104-mile stage from Lamballe to Quimper in 3 hours, 54 minutes, 22 seconds.

Five-time champion Lance Armstrong remained in sixth place overall, 9 minutes and 35 seconds behind leader Thomas Voeckler. American Tyler Hamilton is 36 seconds behind the 32-year-old Texan, and rival Jan Ullrich is 55 seconds back.

"I had trouble because it was slippery and dangerous," said Ullrich, the 1997 champion and five-time runner-up.

All four riders clocked the same time as Hushovd. Ullrich finished 21st, Hamilton 30th, Armstrong 33rd and Voeckler 58th.

After today's day off, the Tour swings for three days through the Massif Central, a mountainous, agricultural plateau of central France that will offer a foretaste of more brutal climbs that lurk further south in the Pyrenees and then, in the final week, in the Alps. There, muscular sprinters will give way in the mountains to more nimble climbers and all-arounders like Armstrong.

"We'll start to see the start of the real race," Armstrong said. "There are a few days that are not so selective, but then we have the mountains and the start of the real Tour."